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Our beloved Chicken Nugget needs surgery.
Chicken Nugget is one of the horses at Painted Bar Stables. While he’s only been with us for a couple years he’s already taken out thousands of riders for trail rides, lessons and other adventures.
Unfortunately while taking a rider out for an adventure it seems he tore his Manica Flexora. This is a thin sheath that bundles all of the tendons together in the lower leg above the pastern. Because it is torn the tendons will keep rubbing on it getting lesions and making him limp.
But there’s hope! While it cannot be solved medically (with medicines and injections and the like), it can be solved with surgery that would go in and remove the torn portion of the membrane. And this surgery has a very high success rate (70% chance of getting back to full work). We actually had another one of our horses, Poco, have this surgery in the past, and she’s 100% better and even does endurance races again.
While no surgery is a guarantee, without the surgery, he will always have pain in that leg and inflammation of his tendons.
He is an integral part of our Handsome Haflinger Happy Meal (consisting of Nugget, Tater Tot and Sweet Tea) and we just can’t imagine the barn at work without him.
To us, it is not an option: we have to fix him!
Unfortunately, we are a bit short on funds. This year has been tough on the farm, with grain already rising in price by as much as 21% and the costs of all of our other supplies going up. Not to mention we are feeling the labor shortage and are short-staffed, meaning we haven’t been able to take out as many trail rides as we could.
We could really use any help anyone can offer. Even just a little bit of help adds up.
And Nugget and his Happy Meal geldings would also really appreciate it too!
Nugget’s History and How We Rescued Him
Like all three of our Haflinger geldings, Chicken Nugget started his life as an Amish driving horse, and like all three of them he was named Bud (there’s a lot of lack of creativity in the Amish community for naming it seems).
Nugget in particular was a drop out. He was scared of the lawnmower he was supposed to pull. He didn’t really seem to do well working with the Amish lifestyle at all and it just made him really nervous.
In 2020 we rescued him and brought him to our farm where he learned a new job: how to be ridden. A job he thought was much, much less scary.
Since then he has blossomed from quite the Chicken S!$& to an adorable and beloved Chicken Nugget.
This chonk of fast food quickly bonded with Tater Tot, our other Haflinger, who has showed him the ropes. Following in Tater’s hood prints (quite literally usually, he will follow Tater anywhere) the two of them, are a force to be reckoned with. You’ll often find them on trail one-after-another playing bumper horses and leap frog as they take beginners and advanced riders alike on epic adventures.
Along with baby Sweet Tea, the third member of their gang, these three have become the Happy Meal, some of the most popular and beloved horses in our stables.
Other Bad News
While at the Cornell Animal Hospital, the veterinarians noticed a pink spot on his eye.
Haflingers are quite prone to cancerous cells in the eye and they worry it might be a squamous carcinoma.
When Nugget heads into surgery we are going to have the eye specialist at Cornell look at his eye. They may choose to remove the carcinoma and give him an injection of chemotherapeuticals.
This process would cost an additional $1200.
TOTAL BILLS:
Diagnosis: $1000
Surgery for Torn Manica Flexora: $4000
Surgery for Eye Carcinoma: $1200
Staffing and Supplies for 4-6 Month Stall Rest: $1000
total cost to barn: $7200
Ways to help:
1. Donate to our GoFundMe
2. Send a donation directly via Venmo to @paintedbarstables
3. Share our fundraiser with your friends
4. Help us recruit interns for our internship program so we can take our more rides!